Broken Pieces
by Eponymous Rose
Summary: After the battle on Chorus, Carolina tracks Wash down for a long-overdue chat.


_This fic was written for a prompt-"Broken Pieces, Wash" on Tumblr. I'm eponymous-rose over there if you'd like to come say hi._

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><p>The thing about having the embodiment of an A.I.'s memory tear itself to pieces in your skull is that it's not especially picky about the memories it destroys.<p>

After the ceasefire, they celebrate at Armonia's most upscale bar. Dr. Grey has enlisted Caboose's help to firmly plant Tucker in a corner with a bottle of soda in lieu of anything stronger that'll mess with his painkillers. Red Team has fortified one side of the bar—Sarge has actually created a makeshift base out of the various overstuffed chairs next to the fireplace, so that it looks more like a pillow fort than a military installation—and every now and then a thoroughly tipsy Simmons bellows a challenge at the Blues that earns a resounding "Fuck off!" from Tucker.

Wash settles himself at the bar and lets the warmth and noise of the place roll over him, hunching his shoulders against various aches and pains. Everyone's leaving him alone, which is… unexpected. Nice, but unexpected. He's had a couple of beers, just enough to shift himself out of focus.

The excited babble fades as Grif starts telling a story, his voice rising and falling amid a chorus of impressed exclamations from the New Republic soldiers hanging on his every word.

Carolina walks in.

Wash shifts on his barstool, staring back at her curiously. She's out of armor, which is unusual these days given her unofficial role as Vanessa Kimball's bodyguard. She scans the room, then meets his eyes with a slightly awkward smile and starts toward him. Epsilon flickers to life beside her and speeds over to go harass Tucker. Wash scrubs at the hairs prickling on the back of his neck, turning back to his drink.

"Hey," Carolina says. "This seat taken?"

The rest of the barstools are empty, so Wash shrugs. She settles on the stool next to him, catches the bartender's eye—the guy's obviously been joining in on the celebrations, because he wobbles a little on his way over—and orders a soda.

"So," she says. "Now that we've had time to catch our breath, we've gotta talk. You're avoiding me."

Wash blinks at her. "Am not," he says, and nearly falls off his stool. So maybe he's had more than a couple of beers. Maybe he's had a lot more. Carolina just looks at him. He grabs at the empty glass peanut bowl on the counter, pushing it from hand to hand, clumsily. "Didn't mean to. Just busy. Sorry."

Carolina shrugs. Her voice is calm, but there's an ominous undertone of frustration in it. "I don't mean now, Wash. I mean we've barely said two words to each other since you put a gun to my head."

Wash swallows a sharp rejoinder. "And here I thought we'd moved past that."

"We did," she says. The bartender comes back with her drink, and she spares him a quick, distracted smile. Wash is pretty sure she misses the bartender's stunned look in response—he must've just figured out who she is. "I thought we were getting better. I thought we _were_ better. What is this, a relapse? I don't remember you being a sullen drunk, Wash."

"Yeah, well," says Wash. "Lots of people forgetting things these days."

She reaches out. His brain overlays the motion, layer upon layer upon layer of memory—Carolina smirking and punching him in the shoulder, Carolina scruffing his hair, Carolina checking a cut over his eye. He flinches, clenches his hand around the glass bowl he's been playing with. She stops, lets her hand drop back to her side. "I talked to Church," she says, and the prickling at the back of his neck starts up again. "I mean, I know you were a Recovery agent. You found York and North, disposed of their bodies. You killed South."

Wash looks at her sideways. A nasty little part of his mind makes him want to test her, makes him say, "Does that bother you?"

"Does it bother _you_?" Her voice rises, momentarily, and she visibly has to pull herself under control. When she speaks again, it's in a near-whisper. "Wash, I understand what they did to you. Believe me, I understand. And I understand that you wanted to take them down at any cost. But after all we did as a team, I don't understand how—"

"It's gone," Wash says.

Carolina stops. Looks at him. "What's gone?"

"All of it. Most of it." He laughs. He's alarmed when it comes out a little tearfully. "I know names and… and places. I know people. But Epsilon took the rest. It doesn't mean anything, anymore. It's just something that happened to someone else. They all—" Dull pain, filtered through a haze of alcohol, distracts him mid-sentence. He looks down to see that the glass bowl is shattered, shards embedded in the palm of his hand. He frowns, puzzled, at the blood that blossoms around it, streaming from his hand to the bar.

"Jesus, Wash," Carolina whispers, and leans over the bar to make a grab for the bartender's cloth. She wraps it loosely around his hand. "Don't put pressure on it yet, it'll just push the shards deeper." She turns in her seat, beckons to Emily Grey. She's trying, Wash thinks, to avoid a scene.

"Oh dear," Emily says, when she gets close enough to peel back the bloody cloth. "Well, you've made quite a mess of yourself, Agent Washington. We'll have to go back to the infirmary for this."

Carolina is staring at him, horrified and thoughtful all at once, like she's just figured out something obvious that she's been missing for a very long time. "Wash," she says.

"I'll be fine in the morning," he says. He twitches his fingers, experimentally. Blinks reactive tears from his eyes. "Sorry. I'm being morbid. Still coming down after the big fight, I guess. Didn't realize I'd had so much to drink."

Carolina's still staring. The dark smudges under her eyes have all but disappeared over the past few days. She smiles more easily. He's heard her laugh a half-dozen times today alone. He's glad, he thinks. He's glad.

"I'll be fine in the morning," he says, again. "I always am."


End file.
